The Stanley Kubrick Archives

There are coffee-table books, there are film books, and then there are books that arrive with sufficient mass to alter the Earth’s rotation ever so slightly. The Stanley Kubrick Archives belongs firmly in the third category. Compiled by Alison Castle and published by Taschen, this magnificent brick of cinematic obsession opens the vaults of one of the most meticulous filmmakers ever to point a camera at bewildered actors and perfectly symmetrical corridors. Created in close cooperation with the Kubrick Estate, it presents an astonishing collection of production material, photographs, scripts, notes, sketches, correspondence and behind-the-scenes treasures that reveal just how astonishingly complicated it is to make something look effortlessly perfect.

Stanley Kubrick never really made films in the conventional sense. He engineered worlds. Whether it was nuclear annihilation, prehistoric evolution, eighteenth-century candlelight, haunted hotels, dystopian ultraviolence or masked Manhattan soirées, every frame appears to have been scrutinised with the intensity of a man who would probably have repositioned the moon if it had cast an inconvenient shadow. This archive demonstrates that the legendary perfectionism was not an exaggeration but, if anything, something of an understatement.

The beauty of this volume is that it doesn’t simply celebrate Kubrick’s finished films; it invites you into the wonderfully chaotic machinery behind them. Here are discarded ideas, annotated scripts, production schedules, costume designs, props, location photographs and countless fragments of a creative process that somehow transformed mountains of paperwork into some of the most unforgettable images in cinema. It’s reassuring to discover that masterpieces don’t simply materialise overnight. They require filing cabinets. Many, many filing cabinets.

Even readers who have never paused 2001: A Space Odyssey every twelve seconds to analyse the lighting will find themselves absorbed. The book is part detective story, part design manual, part visual feast and part reminder that obsessive attention to detail occasionally pays rather handsome dividends. It also confirms the suspicion that if Kubrick had ever decided to organise your garage, you would never find anything again—but it would undoubtedly win awards.

As sold by Crappy Old Books, this 2016 Taschen Bibliotheca Universalis edition is in Fine condition, making it a splendid addition to the shelves of film lovers, photographers, designers and anyone who enjoys books that are almost as impressive as the subjects they celebrate. The binding is handsome, the reproduction superb and the sheer quantity of material means you’ll continue discovering new details long after less ambitious books have been returned to the shelf.

Whether your favourite Kubrick film involves homicidal typewriters, singing bombs, monoliths, powdered wigs, sociopathic milk bars or unnervingly polite masked parties, this archive rewards endless browsing. It is one of those rare volumes that reminds you cinema is not merely entertainment but an intricate act of engineering, artistry and glorious human obsession. Just be warned: once you’ve spent an evening inside Kubrick’s archives, you’ll never again believe that "We’ll fix it in post" was part of his vocabulary.

Keep browsing: See more Film books Other books by Alison Castle